The Slaves to the Voices
by The Warsmith
Summary: A short story after a long break about the ascendant renegades. Regrettably, formatting limitations take a little away from the impact of the story.


_Sevastus…_

He buried his face in his hands as the whispers came again.

_Don't ignore us, Sevastus._

The words didn't register on the aural feeds of his helmets.

_Why, Sevastus? Look at what you've become._

He didn't even hear them with his mundane senses.

_Champion of the Imperium. Fallen so far._

The voices were in his head and try as he might, he could not block them out.

_You were our shield against the dark. The Emperor's Angel._

Inside his helmet, he ground the splintered ends of his teeth together.

_You murdered us, Sevastus. You betrayed the sacred trust of defending the helpless that the Emperor placed on your shoulders. And then you chose to run, Sevastus. You alone could have made it right, but you dragged all those who trusted you down into the dark._

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

_DON'T IGNORE US, SEVASTUS!_

He screamed and pounded his armoured fists against the side of his helmet again and again, cracking an eye lens and denting the ceremite.

"Get out of my head!" he bawled, tearing off the ruined helmet and hurling it aside.

In the scorched dirt just outside the Imperial city, he dropped to his knees, hands pressed against his ears. But his pleas were greeted only with mocking laughter.

"Lord," he had barely noticed the marine besides him.

"Okrak? Is that you?" he hissed.

"Aye, Lord." Okrak had retrieved his discarded helm and was standing over him.

"I've waited too long," he groaned, his hands falling to his sides, "the voices are too strong and too many."

Okrak's horned skull helm jerked suddenly like in the throes of a nervous tic and he knew that the Chaplain was just as haunted by the voices as he was.

"Why did we fall, Lord?"

"_Why did you fall, Sevastus?"_

The overlap in the question confused him and, his thoughts clearing for a heartbeat, looked up.

"Why did we rise again?" Okrak pressed.

_You are unworthy. Murderer. Coward. Traitor._

Arrayed before him was a host of all that remained of his once proud chapters. He saw marines rocking back and forth, screaming in denial of the accusations that they could not ignore. Others thrashed about in warp induced seizures as the darkness of their psyches clawed its way to the surface, armour and flesh running together like hot wax. And among all that, a blazing hurricane of horrific paranormal energy that seemed to bleed from the vents in their armour and howl through their ranks, scraping ethereal claws along ceremite plates and whispering maliciously into minds.

_Everyone here is living your hell, Sevastus._

That knowledge stiffened his resolve. He would not have those under him see him this way. He would not be seen as weak or lost or resigned.

He was the Relentless.

With a growl, he rose to his full imposing height, his cape snapping in a spectral wind that had begun to build from the presence of such a concentration of cursed marines.

"Why did we fall, Okrark?" His scarred lips curling into a snarl, "we fell because we were pushed."

"And why do we rise again?" He accepted the great horned helmet from the Chaplain, absently noticing that no trace of the original damage he had inflicted remained.

"We rise again to push back." The Slaughterer's Horns slammed down with a gasp of pressurisation, hiding the haunted visage of its wearer.

The change was immediate; warriors lost in the roaring of the voices in their heads momentarily forgot their torment and looked to the towering figure who had led them to the brink of damnation and beyond.

"Lord," the gravelly voice of his champion, Draznicht, came through the vox "the Despoiler's instructions were to wait-"

"The warp with the Despoiler's instructions, Dzargon!" he snapped, "I will wait no longer."

He pulled his daemon sword from its scabbard, a swarm of disembodied souls silently shrieking their torment from within the jet black depths of its blade, and thrust it in the direction of the city.

"SLAUGHTER THEM!"

His ranks of warriors broke into a reckless sprint, a chilling howl of release ripping from hundreds of throats.

_Sevastus…_

"That is not my name," he growled.

"I am Kranon."


End file.
